Whatever victory condition you’re going for in Civilization VI, gold will always come in handy! With more gold, you can import more resources, recruit more units, update more units, and purchase tiles for your cities. So getting your economic management right in Civ VI will give you a better chance of victory. Here are some Civilization VI economic tips that will boost your civilizations’ budgets.
Read Also: 6 Civilization VI Tips for Domination Victories
1. Become a Merchant Republic
The Merchant Republic is one of the best governments to select for an economic boost. That’s mainly because of the two additional trade routes it gives you. A couple of additional international trade routes could boost your coffers by something like +20 a turn.
Another notable advantage of Merchant Republic is its two Economic Policy and two Wildcard Policy slots. With a couple of Wildcard slots, you can select an additional two economic policies for a total of four. Thus, you can select up to four Economic Policy Cards for a Merchant Republic, which is more than any other tier one or two governments.
2. Select the Free Market Policy
Free Market should certainly be among your selected Economic Policy Cards. That’s a policy that will increase the gold output of your Commercial Hub district buildings by 100 percent. Therefore, that policy effectively doubles the amount of gold output of those buildings. This is also a policy you can utilize throughout a game after unlocking it as it doesn’t become obsolete.
The Free Market Policy Card
3. Trade with the City-States
Civilization VI includes numerous city-states. Some players might be tempted to attack and capture city-states. However, by doing so you’ll miss out on some great trade routes. Trade routes to trade city-states can be especially lucrative. City-states such as Amsterdam, Antioch, Hunza, and Jurkarta are especially good to have trade routes with as they provide additional economic bonuses for their Suzerains. So, make sure you also establish envoys at trade city-states you’ve established trade routes with.
4. Establish coastal cities
Establishing more coastal cities with your settlers will strengthen your civilization’s economy. Coastal cities offer a few economic advantages. The coast terrain tile provides a base yield of +1 gold and +food. So, coastal cities will generate additional gold from their coast tiles.
Another notable economic advantage of coastal cities is that you can build Harbor districts in them. The Harbor district provides additional gold adjacency bonuses and +2 gold for each citizen assigned it. You can also build a Lighthouse and Seaport at a city’s Harbor district that will boost your gold output even further. Therefore, coastal cities with Harbor districts can often have stronger economies than inland ones.
A coastal city with a harbor
5. Establish cities near luxury resources
Luxury resources are also important to your civilization’s economy as some of their tiles provide gold yields. Luxuries like cotton and cocoa can provide up to +7 gold per tile with additional plantation and the Globalization civic. Truffles, silver, and diamonds are luxuries that have +3 gold resource value. So try to establish new cities close to luxury resources that they can amalgamate into your civilization. Below is a list of luxuries that will boost your economy.
- Ivory
- Cotton
- Cocoa
- Silver
- Wine
- Whales
- Furs
- Gypsum
- Salt
- Truffles
- Diamond
Other luxury resources, such as cosmetics, incense, citrus, coffee, silk, and jeans, don’t provide any gold yields for their tiles. However, you can still trade those luxuries with other civilizations. Try trading luxuries that don’t provide a gold bonus with other civilizations for a certain amount of gold per turn to further boost your economy.
The cotton resource
6. Scale down your military
Every military unit has an upkeep cost. Thus, a large military will be a big expense for your civilization. So don’t recruit more military units than you really need; consider disbanding antiquated units you don’t need so much. Keeping your military expenses down in such a way will boost your budget.
If you really must have a big military, select the Conscription and Levée en Masse policies. Conscription is an earlier military policy that reduces units’ maintenance costs by -1. The Levée en Masse policy provides a -2 gold discount on each unit’s maintenance cost. Those policies will reduce your military expenses.
The above Civilization VI economic tips will help your civilizations’ economies boom! With a booming economy, your civilization will boom.
